Brain Droppings: The Bucket List Movies

Welcome to another edition of Brain Droppings! This week, I’m going to talk on Bucket-List movies

There are some movies that I just want to watch before I die.

This is NOT a Bucket List movie (Its not bad though)

Movies that I have heard great things about, or just happen to be awesome genre defining movies that you have to see, by all accounts, once. To be a true movie buff.

For a long time, if there was a bucket movie, you had to special order it, or try and catch it at a video store- but the obscure ones was never there. For those of you old enough to remember a store called “BlockBuster” and even though they had a ton of movies, and lord knows I had a dozen cards in my truck, the true Bucket List movies were never going to be here. You are not going to see Nosferatu on the shelves there. Nowadays, getting movies you want is almost too easy, with 1500 channels, Amazon, (see banner on right) and DVD stores all over the place.

Gone are the days where you might have to find a tape trader who has that missing NJPW tape you have been wanting to see with the Pegasus Kid vs Tiger Mask you heard about. Heck, with little effort, you can even get the Star Wars Holiday Special on DVD, if you are so inclined.

So you almost have to work to miss movies that would be on a bucket list- or the list has changed to involve an experience. Like Rocky Horror picture show isn’t a bucket list movie- but seeing it in a theater and throwing crap at the screen? You betcha. Getting the MST3K version of Manos, the Hands of Fate? You betcha. Seeing a movie at Comic-Con with the director or Kevin Smith shilling Red State- well, maybe not that last one.

So what do we have to do for a bucket list movie?

1. Has to be 10 years old. I don’t care what you say. The LEGO movie is not anyone’s bucket list. Trying to find a good quality Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill? Oh yeeah. That can be a Bucket List movie.

2. It has to be notable. Either for good of bad.

3. Has to be hard to find, like Manos without the MST3K might count.
Obscure stuff that Bela did with Ed Wood, John Wayne Black and whites etc. If its been on HBO in the past decade, then its been widespread enough that you should have seen it.

4. I think for anyone, it kind of depends on what movies you like and what you are into.

Sci-Fi fans, Gattica almost has to be there, Political people, Idiocracy has to be there, Horror? Nosferatu, The Original Universal Horror Movies, etc, Comedy? Kentucky Fried Movie- maybe? But you get the picture.

I just watched a YouTube video on Movies you have to see before you die. What movie was highlighted?

GHOSTBUSTERS

Really? Who hasn’t seen this movie? If a movie has been on every cable channel but CNN and is on the shelf of every pawnshop in the Northern Hemisphere, then IT IS NOT A MOVIE YOU HAVE TO SEE, EITHER YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN IT OR YOU HAVE BEEN BLIND SINCE BIRTH.

So what was on my bucket list?
How did they live up to my expectations?

Initially, I have had 3 movies I have always wanted to see, but just keep missing, and yes, I have 5 kids- so dropping 20 bucks on Amazon sometimes just isn’t an option. I hit the Pawnshops and Cable. The wife has Netflix, but since she is locked into Gray’s Anatomy, I’m toast there.

So here are my 3 that I have always wanted to see:

Clockwork OrangeOldboy – The OriginalNosferatu

So far, I have seen 2 of the 3, and added a few to the list.

Oldboy I had to see, even setup an alert to let me know if it came on TV, and needed to get it done before Spike Lee pissed all over the Korean Masterpiece. Yes, when Lee what writing the script I knew he was going to piss all over it. Thankfully, Sundance came to my rescue, I taped it, and due to some error, I missed the first 20 minutes.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH, so back to waiting. 2 months later, Spike Lee has urinated all over the picture, and its back on Sundance. Your faithful Author takes no chances, tapes an hour before and 3 hours after- and I have it. 2 weeks later I have a day off with no kids or wife, and I STILL KNOW NOTHING OF THIS PLOT.

I see it.

I have a write up of it somewhere, but I need to see it again before I post. Eventually.

Keep in mind, I knew nothing of the plot of Oldboy going in, and other than knowing it is one of the best movies in history, ultra violent, and has a twist that would kill M Night Shamamamlamadingdong, and of course, the iconic picture to go on.
You know that you know good movie people when that’s all the information you have to go on and it hits your bucket list.

Nosferatu is the original classic Monster Movie.
A Dracula before a Dracula, so close that Bram Stoker’s widow sued to get it pulled and destroyed, and a Silent Movie. Actually the first silent movie I have ever seen. I actually owned this movie 3 times before I saw it. It was again, one of those movies I wanted to wait to see, so I could almost view it as an experience. I don’t want to watch it while watching dishes.

Clockwork Orange is much like Oldboy, just one of those F*ed up movies that I want to see, I’m worried that it might not be great, or a disappointment.

So what is on your Bucket List? Were you disappointed? What should be on any Bucket List?

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